Delhi BMW Accident: Gaganpreet Kaur, the accused woman who was driving the BMW car, which hit and killed a Finance Ministry official in the national capital earlier this month, has claimed that her car did not hit the motorbike and she rushed the victim to the hospital within 24 minutes of the accident.
While appearing for the accused in Patiala House Court seeking bail in the case on Wednesday, Advocate Pradeep Rana
“I made her reach hospital in 24 minutes; it (Nulife) is a super specialty hospital. I informed her the name of the hospital and remained there. Had I any malafide intentions, I would have run away,” Rana said on behalf on Gaganpreet.
He also clarified that Gaganpreet called her father to make urgent arrangements and did not take any
diversions en route to Nulife.
Rana further defended the hospital choice, saying, “AIIMS and Venkateswara would have taken 36 minutes… the hospitals were closer by a few km, but it would’ve taken an additional 12 minutes to reach them due to traffic,” he added.
Judicial Magistrate Ankit Garg, who was hearing the bail petition, asked, “Did you check this right now or the day of the accident?”
Rana replied, “I checked on multiple days. This is the average difference that I got… I’m a housewife who has two minor kids. I’m languishing in jail. We had called hospitals, but didn’t get responses. Then we went to Nulife. Did we stop anywhere for a toilet or anything? Did we take any turns?”
Further referring to the FIR, her counsel stressed that the car hit the two-wheeler from behind but argued that the CCTV footage of the incident showed otherwise.
“Suddenly something came before the car, it hit the footpath, flipped over, turned turtle and then the motorcycle came and hit it, besides hitting a bus. It is wrong to say that the car hit the motorcycle,” he said.
Rana also said the complaint filed by Singh’s wife was contradictory to the CCTV footage.
“What actually happened is that the bike was hit by a bus… we saw the footage. Police are playing hide and seek; if they had CCTV in their favour, they would be playing it in front of the judge,” Rana said.
“If the CCTV shows otherwise, I’ll not even press for bail,” he added.
Rana also requested for the internet history of Gulfam — the driver who took the deceased to the hospital.
Victim’s Family Opposes Bail
The public prosecutor, on the contrary, said the victim’s wife, who is the complainant in the case, never asked Kaur to take them to Venkateshwar Hospital but insisted on being taken to any nearby hospital.
“Before Nulife Hospital, there were several hospitals, AIIMS, Safdarjung, Base Hospital, and others. Nulife gave information to the police about the accident and death at 4:21 PM, three hours after. This is a hospital of the accused’s relatives,” the prosecutor said.
He added, “I am not saying that the victim would have been definitely saved if taken to other hospitals. But the possibility of saving him was higher. Intention was not to save the injured, but to save themselves from legal proceedings by taking them to a relative’s hospital.”
He further argued that the injured were not given immediate medical attention upon reaching the hospital. “Once Gaganpreet takes the victims to the hospital, the injured are just kept on a stretcher, but the one who did the running around was admitted to the ICU,” he said. He added that information to the police was delayed by three hours and the medical records did not show the actual time of arrival.
The prosecutor argued BNS Section 105 was correctly invoked.
“The investigation is at a nascent stage. The complainant is medically critical. There is apprehension of evidence tampering,” the prosecutor said.
The judge has directed the investigating officer (IO) “to produce CCTV footage and all relevant documents” on September 25.
The court also sought the prosecution’s reply on a plea by Kaur’s counsel seeking the internet usage record of the van driver, who took the injured to Nulife, from 1:30 pm to 2:15 pm.
What’s The Case?
Navjot Singh (52), Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, succumbed to his injuries, while his wife suffered severe injuries after a BMW allegedly hit his motorcycle near Delhi Cantonment metro station on Ring Road on September 14.
The Delhi Police arrested Gaganpreet the next day after an FIR was filed against her by the victim’s wife, in which she alleged that Gaganpreet deliberately avoided taking her injured husband to the nearest hospital despite her repeated requests.
The FIR was registered under Sections 281 (rash driving), 125B (endangering life or personal safety of others), 105 and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the BNS.
(With inputs from agencies)
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